There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in recent years about the death of local newspapers, those bastions of democracy and chroniclers of community. While the loss of any newspaper hurts the people they serve, residents of rural areas and small towns are hit especially hard when a newspaper shuts down.
Human nature, be that as it may, seems to try to paste its more colorful ideas to include all of the people, regardless of color, race, creed or origin, on their own their personal beliefs. We seem to think in some of the Greek descriptions of the Alpha, Beta, and Omega.
LITTLE ROCK – Even though Arkansas has taken major steps to improve foster care over the past several years, the Division of Children and Family Services intends to do even better at recruiting foster families and providing services to children at a younger age. The division staff worked with educators, law enforcement, mental health professionals and non-profit organizations on a list of recommendations to better protect vulnerable children and strengthen families during times of crisis.
When I was growing up about 20 miles south of Fort Smith, Ark., I had multiple newspapers to choose from: the daily Southwest Times Record out of Fort Smith that covered the River Valley region, plus the weekly Mansfield Citizen and the Greenwood Democrat, as well as the school paper I cut my teeth on, the Mansfield Tiger Tale. For statewide news, there were the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette dailies. In college, I added the Jonesboro Sun (owned by the Troutt family until 2000), the ASU Herald and The Commercial Appeal out of Memphis to my repertoire.
It’s been a tough year for the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The open records law, one of the best in the country, has been updated often throughout its 56-year history to keep up with changing times, new industry and new technology.
Local newspapers are the pulse and thermometer of a community. A newspaper knows its community like no other entity.
For your reading enjoyment, we continue to publish Rambling Vines by the late Marylea Vines as she recalls events and names of Corning folks from many years ago. We are currently in the year 1989 Talk about a spectacle… I bet that a lot of people get a “charge” out of watching me “walk” Putter.
A couple of weeks ago, as you are reading this, one of our female members of Congress found herself in an embarrassing situation. I will state first thing that I am not condemning her for her actions. I have not always been a pillar of respectability myself. In my younger years, and especially in the middle age crazy days/years, I did some rather sketchy things I would not now care to relate. When one is young and the hormones are flowing and the passions run high, one does not always make good decisions. I know for a certainty that I didn’t. But it mattered little to the rest of the world, as I was only another leaf on the tree of mankind. I have often thought in the last couple of decades that candidates should be subjected to focused emotional and psychological tests before being allowed to run for public office. And I do not assume that even these would clean up the sandbox, because sometimes those who find themselves in important positions of responsibility sometimes allow it to influence their self images and ego adversely. It is not a new thing. The old Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, in the 1830s while struggling to place followers in positions of responsibility, put it quite eloquently. “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” He went on to say how they would try as they exercised that authority they would seek to enlarge it sometimes two fold. I am sure we have all seen that happen in our lives - at work or at other community functions. Our forefathers stated that we all have the basic rights to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The first two are givens, but the third need to be governed, as that pursuit can affect others around us; sometimes slightly, sometimes severely. I think I noticed that Pam Lowe mentioned sometime back that Arkansas Governor Sanders was trying t
Celebrating 150 Years of the City of Corning & Clay County in 2023 Thrashing Grain, Old Style... Before Mr.
There is only transparency or opacity, there is no in-between when it comes to the people’s right to know about the workings of their government and the people they have elected to serve them. Arkansas has been known to have one of the best Sunshine laws in the country, however; the state of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act has been as clear as mud this week.